At the Water's Edge

The novel opens with a prologue set in February 1942 in the Scottish Highland village of Drumnadrochit. Màiri Grant, a young woman who has just lost her infant daughter, visits the baby's grave. A telegram has declared her husband, Captain Angus Grant, missing and presumed killed in action. Seven crows settle on the graveyard wall, echoing the folk rhyme "Seven for a secret, never to be told." Consumed by grief, Màiri walks to the ruins of Urquhart Castle, descends through the Water Gate, a passage from the castle down to the loch shore, and wades into the freezing water of Loch Ness to her death.

Three years later, in January 1945, Madeline "Maddie" Hyde arrives at a rustic inn called the Fraser Arms in Drumnadrochit. Her husband, Ellis Hyde, and his best friend, Hank Boyd, have dragged her across the Atlantic during the war to hunt the Loch Ness monster. Both men were classified 4F, deemed unfit for military service. Ellis believes finding the monster will prove his worth to his father, Colonel Whitney Hyde, who has treated Ellis with contempt since a color blindness diagnosis disqualified him from enlisting.

A flashback recounts the events leading to their journey. At a New Year's Eve party in Philadelphia, Ellis latched onto Hank's recurring idea of hunting the monster, revealing deep bitterness about his 4F status. His parents had slashed his allowance after Pearl Harbor, trapping the couple under their roof. The Colonel's own connection to the monster is fraught: In 1934, he photographed what he claimed was the creature, briefly becoming a celebrity before the Daily Mail accused him of fraud. On New Year's Day, the Colonel and Ellis's mother, Edith Stone Hyde, confronted them about their behavior. Ellis, defending Maddie, blurted out that the Colonel faked his photographs, and the Colonel ordered them out. Hank arranged passage on a cargo ship through Freddie Stillman, the son of an admiral whose proposal Maddie had once rejected before eloping with Ellis. The Atlantic crossing was harrowing: German U-boats torpedoed another ship in the convoy, and their vessel rescued burned survivors under fire.

The Fraser Arms has no electricity and limited hot water. The landlord, a large, bearded man named Angus, reluctantly admits them. A redheaded barmaid named Meg and a young woman named Anna McKenzie round out the staff. Ellis registers under Maddie's maiden name to avoid association with his disgraced father, but an elderly local quickly recognizes Ellis and publicly insults the family. Angus quietly corrects the register to their real name without turning Maddie out.

Ellis and Hank leave for Inverness without telling Maddie, stranding her with no money and no ration book. When they return, they begin daily expeditions to the loch. One afternoon, Maddie overhears them referring to her as having been won in a coin toss, revealing that her marriage was a calculated arrangement. She recalls her troubled past: an abusive mother whose suicide attempt Maddie discovered and foiled, followed by isolation at boarding school. After school, she met Ellis, Hank, and Freddie in Bar Harbor. When Freddie proposed and Maddie rejected him, Ellis proposed days later, and Hank spirited them to Maryland for a quick wedding. The coin toss explains the absence of intimacy, Hank's constant presence, and Ellis's detachment.

With no escape, Maddie begins helping with housework and discovers that Ellis has been secretly consuming her prescribed nerve pills. Anna and Meg become her first real female friends. She also assembles evidence that Ellis has been faking his color blindness: He always bought her red dresses and crashed cars because he was drunk, not because he could not distinguish colors. When she tests him by telling him her red gloves are green, his panicked reaction confirms her suspicion.

While lost in the local woods, Maddie encounters a weeping old woman in green washing a rust-stained shirt in a river. Anna identifies the figure as the Caonaig, a supernatural washerwoman from Highland folklore whose appearance portends death. Days later, Anna's brother Hugh is killed in action. That night, Angus finds Maddie sobbing by the fire and holds her, marking a turning point in their connection.

Maddie pieces together Angus's past. She notices him placing snowdrops on the grave described in the prologue and discovers thick scars across his torso. Anna reveals that Angus was a decorated commando grievously wounded in France, his identification tags torn off, presumed killed. The French Resistance saved him, but by the time he returned, Màiri had walked into the loch. Angus blames himself and has refused to enter the water since.

On the night of a Valentine's Day dance, Ellis pounds on Maddie's locked door in a drunken rage. Hank intervenes and locks him in his room. That same night, Meg's boyfriend, Rory, beats her savagely after accusing her of infidelity. Angus pins Rory against the wall before throwing him down the stairs. Maddie and Angus care for Meg through the night. The next morning, Ellis discovers Maddie has flushed his remaining pills and ransacks her room. He and Hank disappear for two weeks. When they return, Hank warns Maddie that Ellis has arranged to have her lobotomized, requiring only a phone call. Ellis has also checked poaching penalties, intending to imprison Angus if Maddie does not cooperate.

A telegram informs Maddie her father has died. At the Water Gate, something rises from the loch and strikes her backward to safety. Meg interprets this as Màiri's spirit giving her blessing. That night, Maddie goes to Angus. He initially sends her away, saying she is grieving, but minutes later comes to her room. They make love for the first time. A subsequent telegram reveals Maddie has inherited her grandfather's entire fortune, and Ellis is ecstatic. Meg suggests poisoning Ellis with toxic plants, but Maddie cannot go through with it.

Police arrive to arrest Angus for poaching on the Craig Gairbh estate based on Ellis's report, but Angus informs them he is the laird, or legal lord, of Craig Gairbh, as the closest surviving male relative of the previous owner. Maddie races to the loch and confronts Ellis, finding a miniature model monster he and Hank built to fabricate footage. She throws it into the water and accuses him of faking his color blindness. Ellis punches her. Something large strikes the boat from below, flipping Maddie into the loch. Underwater, she sees Ellis pressing an oar against her chest, holding her down. Angus dives in and pulls her to safety. Ellis destroys the camera, eliminating evidence of both his murder attempt and whatever disturbed the water.

Angus carries Maddie to the castle ruins. She develops hypothermia and pseudopneumonia. Mhàthair, Anna's mother and the local midwife, nurses her while Angus stays by her side through a dangerous fever. During the worst of it, Maddie has a vision of Màiri. A policeman reports that Ellis has been found dead, facedown at the water's edge, drowned in two inches of water. The death is filed as accidental. Hank, devastated, tells Maddie before leaving that he plans to inform the Colonel that Ellis faked his color blindness.

Maddie sends Ellis's body home, and Angus proposes. On Victory Day, amid bonfires, bagpipes, and celebration, they marry. Anna and Willie the Postie marry the following day. In an epilogue, Maddie and Angus transform the Craig Gairbh estate into a convalescent hospital for injured soldiers. Meg joins as a nurse and later marries a young corporal on Valentine's Day, redeeming a date long associated with tragedy. Maddie and Angus have two children. The novel closes with Maddie's reflection that monsters usually hide in plain sight and her declaration that those who survived the war opened their arms wide and embraced life.